


yes, i have a thousand tongues, and nine and ninety-nine lie

by Lirazel



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 22:26:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2325401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirazel/pseuds/Lirazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lies Beatrice Duke tells.  (And so what if most of them involve Benedick Hobbes?  That doesn’t mean anything at all.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	yes, i have a thousand tongues, and nine and ninety-nine lie

**_Nothing happened._**

Hero’s pretty face is scrunched up in confusion and this is the very last thing Beatrice wants to talk about—ever—but Hero had gone pale and wide-eyed when the shouting started and now she’s sounding so concerned as she begs for Bea to talk to her, and Beatrice has never been able to resist those pleading eyes.

“But I don’t understand, you two get along so well, you’ve been spending all your time together, I thought you were like best friends now.”

The words sting more than Beatrice wants to let on, but she just glares in the direction Ben had stormed off not three minutes ago and regulates her breathing. Due to her lung condition, Hero had had special breathing instructions when she was younger, and Beatrice had practiced them with her to keep her company. They’re coming in handy now. “Well, that’s because I didn’t know how big of a jerk he is. We’re not friends now.”

Hero grabs her hand, squeezes it gently. “But, Bea, what _happened_?”

Hero is barely twelve and still likes ponies and making daisy chains and the biggest crush she’s ever had is Dimitri from _Anastasia_ and there’s no way Beatrice is going to be able to explain what happened with Ben to her.

_What would I say? “I thought he liked me as much as I liked him, that we were important to each other, but even though I’m going away in a few days and we won’t see each other for months and I let him know I wanted us to promise we’d keep up with each other, he’s still talking about how he only lives in the moment and goes with the flow and doesn’t make promises or commitments, and he couldn’t possibly be more clear that he doesn’t care whether we stay friends or not, that I’m not worth putting in some effort for, that we aren’t close the way I thought we were”?_

Beatrice is not saying that.

“Nothing happened,” she says instead.

She says it again and again over the next few days—to Pedro, to the aunties, to Meg, to Hero more than once. Nothing happened, she just saw how big of a jerk he always was and came to her senses. That’s all. Her tone morphs from nonchalant to warning and eventually everyone drops it and Beatrice doesn’t have to say it anymore. ~~Except to herself.~~

Nothing. Happened.

—

**_I don’t miss him at all._**

Another summer, another visit to Auckland. The aunts pick her up at the airport and Leo has to keep a hand clamped on Hero’s shoulder to keep her from running right past the security guard as soon as she sees Beatrice. Beatrice feels a grin splitting her face and as soon as she’s past the checkpoint, Hero attacks her with the world’s biggest hug, and there are more hugs and greetings from the aunts and Leo and her suitcase to get from the baggage claim and they pile into the car and on the way home they stop by that really great burger shack and get milkshakes and while Beatrice hates the heat and the way it dampens her bangs and makes her legs stick to the leather of the car seat, she’s really glad it’s summer because she’s really glad she’s here.

Hero has a dab of whipped cream on her nose from where she stuck her face into her strawberry milkshake cup to lick out the cherry, and of course only Hero could make it look that cute. Beatrice is smiling at her around the straw of her own milkshake as Hero prattles on, cheeks flushed with heat and excitement.

“Everyone can’t wait to see you. Ursula and Meg and Pedro, and Pedro’s made friends with this guy named Balthasar who you really have to meet—he can play any instrument in the world, I swear—and Ben, of course.”

Beatrice cannot believe the word she just heard her cousin say. “ _Ben_?” 

“Yeah, Ben,” Hero says, all casual like she’s not saying Beatrice’s most hated word in the world.

No need to leap to conclusions. Beatrice does her breathing exercises and she thinks she sounds completely reasonable when she asks, “Is this another new friend of Pedro’s? A Benjamin or a Benvolio or something?”

Hero rolls her eyes. “No, Beatrice, _Ben_. Benedick Hobbes. Remember, the guy with the sonic screwdriver you spent all last summer hanging out with?”

Beatrice tries not to be short with her cousin, but she’s probably not doing a very good job of it right now. “I can’t imagine a single reason _Benedick Hobbes_ would want to see me. And I definitely have no intention of seeing him, not under any circumstances.”

“Oh, Bea,” Hero sighs. “Are you still going to be like that? I know you two had a bit of a falling out last summer—” Hero ignores Beatrice’s loud snort. “—but surely you’re not still mad at him about whatever happened, right?”

Beatrice smacks her cup into the cupholder; she’s suddenly lost any appetite she had for banana milkshakes even if they’re her favorite and no one in Wellington makes them as well. “I’m not mad, because nothing happened.”

“Well, if nothing happened then you two can be friends again.”

“I will never, ever be friends with _Benedick Hobbes_ again, and I really prefer you not to bring him up at all. Ever. Again.”

“Oh, come on, Bea, surely you must miss him. You two have so much in common and had so much fun together last summer and—”

“I have absolutely nothing in common with that dickface,” she announces. “And no, actually. I don’t miss him at all.”

She gets a bit of chiding from the aunties about her language, but it must get across to Hero just how serious Beatrice is, because she doesn’t say another thing about Benedick Hobbes for the rest of the summer.

—

_**I hate tea.**_

There is absolutely no reason for Beatrice to be feeling like this. This trip to Auckland has been a good one: there’s been baking with the aunties, and beach volleyball with Pedro, and sleepovers with Ursula and Meg and dozens of colors of nail polish, and soccer in the back yard with Leo, and whispering and giggling with Hero long after they’re supposed to be asleep. It’s been just like any other summer, the highlight of Beatrice’s year. Wellington may be her home, but she’s never happier than when she’s in Auckland. 

So there is absolutely no reason for her to be sitting in the kitchen at one in the morning, staring at the wall and feeling restless and...something else. ~~Not upset. Never upset.~~

But even though there’s no reason, that’s where she is and what she’s doing.

Leo blinks even in the dim light of the one lamp Beatrice had switched on as he stumbles into the kitchen. “Oh, Beat-rice,” he says, using the nickname he’d used to tease her with when they were little kids. “I saw the light and—are you okay?”

Beatrice makes herself smile and shrug her shoulders in her Jedi bathrobe. “Just can’t sleep.”

“That’s rough. Hey, I’ll make you some tea,” he announces and heads to the cupboard where they keep tea and coffee and other things for drinks.

“I hate tea.” The words are out of Beatrice’s mouth before she can even think about them, but even the hint of bitterness to them tastes right. That’s right. She hates tea. She’d rather drink anything else on earth than tea.

Leo pauses with his hand on the cupboard knob and a look on his face like she’s crazy. “Bea, you love tea. A couple of summers ago you drank it every single morning, remember? Mum and Mumma always buy an extra tin before your visits.”

Beatrice really wants to yell at him to stop talking about tea, but she clenches her teeth closed around the words. It’s not like Leo knows that every time he even mentions tea, the flavor of it fills her mouth, accompanied by memories she’s tried her best to forget. She usually thinks she has forgotten them, but today…. “I don’t like tea anymore,” she says as calmly as she can. Leo is still looking at her with a concerned look she usually sees on Hero’s face, so she lifts the corners of her mouth and says, “Wouldn’t mind some hot chocolate, though.”

Leo grins and shakes his head and ten minutes later he’s setting a mug of hot chocolate down in front of her with a click. It tastes good, warm and rich and sweet, and he even put marshmallows in it. Beatrice feels her shoulders loosen a little as she takes a sip.

Leo settles down on the bar stool beside her and takes a drink from his own mug. “You were a bit down at dinner, too.”

The tension’s back in her shoulders but she keeps her voice light as she answers. Maybe he’ll drop it. “Just tired but not able to sleep. You know how that goes.”

“Sure. We’ve all been there. Was it because Ben was here earlier? Hero said he really bothers you but he’s on the team, you know, so—”

It’s a good thing that Beatrice had gulped down half of her hot chocolate because otherwise it would have sloshed over the edge of the mug as she slams it down onto the counter. “He does not bother me.” Her voice sounds brittle even to her ears. “I’m not awake in the middle of the night because of _Benedick Hobbes_.”

“Okay, okay. Hero just said—”

“Hero doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Thanks for the hot chocolate.”

She pushes her stool back, not even wincing at the sound of it scraping across the floor, and matches down the hall and up the stairs, almost tripping over Leo’s soccer cleats in the hall outside the bathroom, which doesn’t help her mood. She’s fuming by the time she makes it to her bed and flops down on it, kicking the sheets down so they won’t cling around her legs and staring at the bit of light from the floodlights outside that sneaks in between the ridges of the blinds.

“I am not awake because of _Ben-the-dick Hobbes_ ,” she says fiercely. “That is not why I’m awake.”

Her sleeplessness has absolutely nothing to do with coming around the corner before dinner and running smack into a familiar-smelling lanky length of boy. And no, she very definitely didn’t instantly recognize the scent of laundry detergent and tea and she very definitely wasn’t swept instantly back to the summer she was fourteen when she and a boy called Ben were connected at the hip.

She didn’t stumble back and gape up at him—further up than before because he’s grown _again_ —and she didn’t stare at his face and think that he looked a lot more grown up than she remembers and that he’s lost his baby fat in his cheeks and the new look suits him. And she most certainly didn’t feel weak at a needle-sharp stab of loss ~~and something like longing~~ as she looked at him.

She did, however, feel fury bubbling up in her when his shocked expression fell off of his face and was replaced by a lopsided grin as he said, “Oh, hey, Bea. Been a while, right? Wow, it’s not bad, how you’ve grown up. I mean—” And there went his stupid eyebrows and Beatrice was _this close_ to ripping them right off his face.

“Don’t talk to me, dickface. I don’t want to get infected with whatever stupidity virus you have, as I’m sure it’s airborne,” she snapped, and ~~fled~~ marched down the hall. Okay, so it wasn’t one of her better lines, but she had not expected to find _Benedick Hobbes_ in her own home (okay, so it’s the aunties’ home, but whatever, it’s her home when she’s here!) and of course she’s a bit shaken, she’d be a bit shaken at running into anyone she didn’t expect to see so suddenly like that.

She doesn’t feel shaken at all now, she tells herself as she hears the air conditioner kick back on and feels cool air from the vent brush against her cheeks (which are very definitely not flushed at the memory). She didn’t care at all that she ran into Ben-the-Dick Hobbes and she didn’t even notice that his voice, which had been cracked and changing the summer the were friends, had finally settled down at that his shoulders looked just a little bit wider than she remembered. She had been unable to sleep tonight because she and Hero ate a chocolate salad before bed and she’s got lots of sugar in her system, that’s all.

It’s got nothing to do with Benedick Hobbes.

—

**_I’ve never been in love. (Unless you count Benedict Cumberbatch.)_**

Beatrice is a feminist, so she doesn’t scorn girly things just because they’re girly. She’s allergic to pink, sure, and jewelry and makeup aren’t really her thing, and she prefers jeans to skirts, but Hero’s like the girliest girl ever and she adores her, so she definitely doesn’t have anything against girliness, and even if she finds something silly, she tries to remember not to say so. (Tries.)

But God, she really hates these girly sleepover games. 

Sleepovers are great, she loves them, and she and Hero have one with Ursula and Meg every time she visits, and Beatrice loves all the junkfood and the movies and making prank phone calls to that Robbie kid Meg’s into. She doesn’t even really mind the manicures and pedicures and trying out of hairstyles, even if she prefers to laugh at the others’ new looks instead of participating herself. She even deals with Meg giggling over Robbie with what she thinks is admirable restraint (something snarky only slips out of her mouth once, and it’s only mildly caustic. Really). 

But this? This is going too far, and Beatrice is not going to stand for it.

“God, can’t we do something else now?”

“We just started this,” Hero protests. “Why do you want to do something else?”

“Because it’s a stupid game!” Beatrice may or may not illustrate her point with appropriate ~~overdramatic~~ hand motions.

“You didn’t mind it a minute ago when you were the one who got to ask the question,” Ursula points out mildly. 

“Yeah, and we all told you what our most embarrassing moments were, so now you have to answer my question,” Meg insists.

“Well, ask a better question!”

“No! This is the question I want to ask and it’s my turn and you have to answer it!”

Beatrice very nearly snaps something about how terrible Meg’s hair looks at the moment—Hero was trying some complicated ‘do she’d learned off youtube, but Beatrice doesn’t think it was supposed to end up looking like _that_.

“Meg, if she doesn’t want to answer the question, she can pass,” Hero says, ever the peacemaker, keeping Beatrice from saying something she’d have to apologize for later.

“No she can’t! Not after I told her about that shrimp cocktail at my dad’s dinner party!”

“Beatrice, can’t you just answer the question?” Ursula sighs.

“No, I can’t answer it, because I’ve never been in love!”

“Come on, Bea, I know you’ve had crushes, you must have at least been in extreme like with someone,” Meg teases, bumping her shoulder into Beatrice’s. “Or lust.”

Beatrice’s cheeks are not red. “I haven’t.”

The look on Meg’s face would be less incredulous if Beatrice had announced she was leaving on a mission to the international space station in the morning. “How is that even _possible_? With all the guys in the world? Seriously?” 

Beatrice really does like Meg, though she likes her better when she’s not going on about guys. She reminds herself of that and digs her newly turquoise fingernails into her palms. “Seriously.” 

“Unless you count Benedict Cumberbatch,” Hero puts in, and Meg’s eyes light up again.

“Oh, so our Bea likes them tall, messy-haired and British, then?”

Did Beatrice say she loved sleepovers? She hates sleepovers.

—

**_Apples are far superior to bananas._ **

Okay, so bananas are actually her favorite fruit, but _Benedick_ said they were his favorite before she could say it first and clearly she can’t admit he’s right, right?

“Please, Bene _dick_. Apples are far superior to bananas. Everyone knows this.”

Beatrice ignores Hero’s raised eyebrows and spends the next seventeen minutes expounding on all the ways that apples are better than bananas.

—

**_Benedick Hobbes is the biggest dick at Messina High._**

“You’re lucky you’ve visited Auckland so much before you moved here. It must be a lot easier for you to be the new student when you already know a bunch of people. I had a hard time when I transferred last year.”

Beatrice would find that last hard to believe—everyone smiles and waves at Indira as she walks down the hall, and Beatrice knows that she’s the leader of at least three different clubs, and she really does seem like Miss Popularity—but she knows that how things like on the outside don’t always reflect the reality of the inside. For instance, some people might seem like perfectly fun guys with great taste in television shows and t-shirts but really be a huge dickwad on the inside. Just for example.

“Well, there’s a learning curve for everyone, but I guess I don’t have it so bad,” she says as she and Indira pause by their lockers. “Hero’s a year behind me, but we can eat lunch together and I’ve got Ursula and Meg and Pedro and Balth and that Claudio’s not so bad.”

“Yeah, you’ve already got your little circle of friends,” Indira agrees. “Though you forgot Ben.”

Beatrice fights to keep a pleasant look on her face. Hero had warned her that she’d scare away new friends with her rantings if she wasn’t careful. She’d promised to try to keep her opinions to herself. “I didn’t forget him. I left him out on purpose.”

“Oh, really?” Indira seems genuinely surprised. “Do you two not get on? I see you talking all the time at lunch and didn’t you get in trouble for talking during history class yesterday?”

_That was his fault!_ she wants to burst out, because she’s still pissed at him for needling her during class. Yeah, sure, she was talking, too, but how could she _not_ argue with him when he’d said something so hopelessly stupid? “We weren’t talking,” she explains, taking out her physics book. “We were arguing. That is the only way we communicate.”

“Huh. I’m surprised, I would have thought you’d get along quite well. You’ve got a lot in common.”

Beatrice isn’t a violent person (she isn’t!), but she seriously wants to strangle the next person who says that to her. “I don’t have things in common with dicks.”

“Oh, Beatrice, is he really that bad? I mean, sure, he’s a bit of a clown and he talks a lot and that can get annoying, but he’s a nice guy, a really good friend from everything I can tell. I can think of loads of people who are worse—what about John Donaldson? Or Robbie, he’s a creep. I don’t think Ben belongs in the same category as some of those people.”

Beatrice’s knuckles whiten where she’s clutching her physics book. She says the words carefully, precisely. “Benedick Hobbes is the biggest dick at Messina High.”

“You know, Bea, I’m flattered that you’re telling everyone about the size of my package, which is rather impressive if I do say so myself, but I must admit to be taken aback that you know how big it is. How do you even know? Have you been spying on me? Did you ask Pedro to check me out in the bathroom to confirm your suspicions?”

Beatrice spins around with a snarl and would have clocked Benedick with her physics book if Indira hadn’t quickly grabbed it from her hands. “I said you _are_ the biggest dick, not that you _have_ the biggest dick, you...dick!”

There’s a challenge in the light of Benedick’s eyes and the tilt of his chin that makes her want to throttle him or—something. God, no one has ever smirked in a more obnoxious way. “I’m almost concerned at how much you talk about my dick, Bea. I mean, I understand being hung up on it, but is this really appropriate talk for the school hallway? There are Year Nines around, you know.”

Beatrice just manages to keep herself from kicking him directly in the area of his anatomy under discussion and instead snatches her book from Indira and storms off down the hall. She’s so ~~flustered~~ angry that she can’t even think of anything to say, but he hasn’t won. She’ll spend the whole next period coming up with something unbeatable, and once class is over she’ll destroy him. Rhetorically speaking. 

—

_**I hate Benedick Hobbes.**_

Beatrice would really rather keep it a secret a while longer.

Even though he’d been bouncing with excitement when he suggested they film a vlog together, he’d taken it pretty well when she shouted, “No vlogs!” and then mumbled something about privacy and performance for the internet or whatever. But he’d had an expression she labeled as baffled when she told him not tell anyone at all. It wasn’t until he gave her one last kiss and left that it occurred to her that he’d really looked hurt and that he must think she’s ashamed of him, that that’s why she doesn’t want anyone to know they’re together now.

That’s not it. It really isn’t! God, how could he possibly think that? She’s not that much of a snob. And okay, so the real reason isn’t that much better, but it’s seriously not because she’s ashamed of him.

Look, she’s not proud of it, but it is the way it is: she’s dreading everyone else finding out. _Not_ because she’s ashamed of him, but because...she really hates admitting she’s wrong. Oh, she said in that one vlog that she could easily admit it, but the truth is, she hates having to take her words back. And she _really_ hates the teasing that accompanies being wrong or changing your mind. 

And that’s what’s headed their way: teasing. Lots and lots of teasing. Meg will be in raptures over the whole thing and the other guys will make so many jokes and even Ursula will drop a sly comment now and then to remind Beatrice of all the times she swore she’d never be in a relationship and swore even louder that she hated Benedick Hobbes. Hero won’t tease much, not once she sees Beatrice is serious when she begs her not to, but whenever she sees Ben, she’ll give Beatrice one of those looks where her eyes dance with mischief and Beatrice will want to go out and drown herself.

Everyone’s going to rub it in her face, all the times she said she hated Ben, all the times she said she didn’t want a boyfriend. She practically pulls her hair out by its roots whenever she so much as thinks about it. She’s finally getting used to the whole her-and-Ben idea ~~and maybe even getting used to holding hands. discreetly. when no one else is around. it’s not as clammy as she thought~~ , but she just can’t take everyone’s reactions when they find out.

It’s not like she can tell them that she was lying all along. That Ben had been the first ~~only~~ person to break her heart, that whenever she saw him after the summer they were fourteen her chest would clench with how much she missed him, that she’s been in love with him this whole time. They wouldn’t understand how fragile her heart felt when she thought she wasn’t important to him and how fiercely she’d fought to hide that. Well, Hero probably would because Hero understands everything, but she’d also be sympathetic with her big kind eyes and Beatrice adores her cousin more than just about anything in the world, but she could _not_ handle that right now. Not when she’s still saying _Ben is my boyfriend_ over and over to herself because she still hasn’t completely internalized it yet.

She just...needs some time to process all of this and for her and Ben to get to know each other again before they have to deal with the pressure of the whole world knowing. She _needs_ that.

Maybe that’s why, when Meg says something flip about Beatrice and Ben being in love one day at lunch, Beatrice shrieks, “Will you drop that already? I hate Benedick Hobbes!” and storms off.

And instantly feels riddled with shame because what if Ben had heard that? True, he hadn’t made it to the lunch table yet and was probably trying to torrent the new episode of _Doctor Who_ somewhere with better wifi access than their corner outside, but if he _had_ heard it...and if one of them mentioned it to him later...it could really hurt him. And then he’d make those sad puppy eyes and she’d feel like she’d just yelled at a kitten and...Ugh!

Beatrice turns around and starts back to the lunch tables to ask them not to tell him what she said. But she doesn’t quite round the corner when she hears Meg’s voice and freezes.

“...whatever. They’re totally dating now.”

“You think they are?” That’s Pedro, who still sounds subdued even after everything’s been worked out and forgiven. Beatrice thinks it might be a long time before he deals with his guilt and he’s fully himself again. And while she’s glad he groveled and apologized to Hero and she agreed they could be friends again, she’s not above being a bit glad that he still feels bad. He _should_. “I mean, they haven’t been fighting as much lately, but you heard Bea just now.”

“Trust me, I am the queen of body language and I know when two people are getting it on,” Meg answers. “Even if ‘getting it on’ in their case probably means making out in between arguments about whether _Farscape_ or _Babylon 5_ is better.”

Beatrice’s cheeks flame when she hears a lot of laughter at that, but she manages to stop herself from bursting around the corner and demanding they tell her what’s so funny.

“Hero?” Balthasar asks. “Has she said anything to you?”

“No, but you heard her just now. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past four years, it’s that whatever Bea says about Ben, she really means the exact opposite. Beatrice is a very honest person, but she lies about Ben all the time. It’s what she does.”

“I don’t know why they don’t just tell us already if they are together. What’re they sneaking around for?” Claudio says and yeah, Beatrice’s hands still clench into fists at the sound of his voice but she’s stopped wanting to scratch his face off whenever she sees him. Mostly.

“You really don’t know? Isn’t it obvious?” The others’ reactions to Ursula’s question proves that it’s not at all obvious to them. Beatrice can almost see Ursula sighing and rolling her eyes as she explains. “She said for years and years that she hated him and she didn’t want a boyfriend, and he said all the same stuff, too. They don’t want to have to deal with all of their friends mocking them now that they’ve changed their minds.” Beatrice knows Ursula well enough to know that she’s shrugging her shoulders now.

“We wouldn’t do that,” Hero insists, but Meg bursts into giggles of, “Yeah, we would!” and then there’s a chorus of agreement from the others. Beatrice crosses her arms over her chest and is about to march out and confront them all when suddenly an arm drops around her shoulders.

“What’re you lurking in the shadows for, love?”

She can maybe admit to herself now that it’s warmth that she feels at the sound of his voice, excitement at his nearness. But she doesn’t want that to go to his head, so she just huffs. “Our friends are speculating on our love lives,” she explains. “They think we’re already dating.”

She looks up at him just in time to see the smile fall off his face and the light dim in his eyes. “Oh. Sorry about that, love. I can go tell them they’re wrong if you want and we can keep it a secret a little longer, till you’re comfortable and—”

She grabs his arm to keep him from going around the corner. “No. Ben, no.” At the quizzical quirk of his eyebrows, she takes a deep breath. Yeah, the teasing is going to come, but she thinks she can deal with that if it means that she never has to see Ben look so disappointed again. “Let’s just tell them and get it over with. We might as well, right?”

That huge grin breaks out across his face and her cheeks definitely don’t heat up at the sight. “You sure, love?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Because you were sure that you hated me and you’d never have a boyfriend and now look at—”

“Don’t you dare start, Benedick Hobbes, don’t you dare start with me. You know you said all the same things too, don’t even act like I was the only one, oh my God, I _hate_ you.” And she’d just promised herself she wouldn’t say that anymore, so woops?

But Ben just smiles down at her with that look in his eyes that makes her stomach do somersaults and says, “I hate you, too.”

And then she fists her hands in his shirt and tugs his mouth to hers and they’re kissing when the bell rings and their friends coming streaming around the corner and Meg shouts, “I knew it! The queen was right!” and the waves of teasing are already closing over their heads.

But when she sees Ben’s eyes shining like that, it would be a lie if Beatrice said she regretted it.


End file.
